I was also diagnosed in 2012 and has surgery in 2013. I continue on meds and have many health issues still. I haven’t had a full recovery and dramatic weight loss or anything. I’m now starting to regret surgery as it has left me very limited in what I can do. I was far more mobile before. I miss my life. I’ve lost everything since having surgery!

I, too, was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor and subsequently had surgery to remove it. I still struggle day to day with many issues…word finding, comprehension, emotions. I also struggle with finding Cushings disease support groups in our area.

A simple test that measures free cortisol levels in saliva at midnight — called a midnight salivary cortisol test — showed good diagnostic performance for Cushing’s syndrome among a Chinese population, according to a recent study. The test was better than the standard urine free cortisol levels and may be an alternative for people with end-stage kidney disea […]

Your case is every similar to mine. I wasn’t a dancer but I did play multiple sports in high school and played college basketball. I saw doctor Yuen at Swedish as well and many more doctors as well. I have never got my case or my symptoms solved. Over 4 years of doctors and testing. They found I had a pituitary tumor and mildly high cortisol in my 24 hour Ur […]

Thanks for sharing your story. In February it will be 6 years since I’ve had my pituitary surgery. My health is constantly up and down as well. I was just wondering if you’re treated for depression or anxiety at all? Also, have you found any exercises or physical therapy to be helpful?

Jill wrote: 'In December 2004 my dad who had addison's for over 30 years had a triple bypass surgery 6 days before Christmas. The surgery was an amazine success and it was predicted he would be home before Christmas. Day 2 following surgery the hospital neglected to give him his steriods for his Addison's for 22 hours, which they were complete […]

A man with Cushing’s disease — caused by an adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH)-secreting pituitary adenoma — who later developed metastases in the central nervous system without Cushing’s recurrence, was successfully treated over eight years with radiation and chemotherapy, according to a case report.

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Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B has teamed up with Disney to develop a movie based on the life of Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, the head of brain tumor surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Quiñones-Hinojosa’s path to becoming a physician started in an unlikely place: a cotton field. He had come to the United States in 1987 from his native Mexico at the age of 19, penniless and unable to speak English. Driven to have a better life than the one he would have had in Mexico, he took jobs picking cotton, painting, and welding to pay for his tuition at San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton, California.

“These very same hands that now do brain surgery, right around that time they had scars everywhere from pulling weeds. They were bloody,” he told CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta in a 2012 interview.

After earning his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and training in both general surgery and neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco, Quiñones-Hinojosa came to Johns Hopkins in 2005 and became a faculty member and surgeon. He specializes in brain cancer and pituitary tumors. His autobiography Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon was published in 2011 and received the International Latino Book Award in 2012.

Feeling like an outsider helped keep Quiñones-Hinojosa focused and “at the top of his game,” he told CNN. In the keynote speech delivered at Johns Hopkins University’s 2013 commencement ceremony, he elaborates, weaving together memories of his own brush with death in a work accident with his experience operating on a patient with a massive brain tumor that unexpectedly ruptured during surgery. Quoting the migrant farm worker and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, he says, “If you are afraid, you will work like crazy.”

Plan B began developing the project—titled Dr. Q, the nickname for Quiñones-Hinojosa adopted by his patients—in 2007 after hearing a radio broadcast about the doctor and his background.

Matt Lopez, author of the popular Civil War play The Whipping Man and a former staff writer for HBO’s The Newsroom, will write the script.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney expects Dr. Q to be a modestly-budgeted inspirational drama. Plan B executives Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner won Best Picture Oscars two years ago for their production work on 12 Years a Slave and were nominated this year for their work on The Big Short.